Such is the power

I seem to have come down with some sort of virus, the kind of thing that feels totally out of place in the month of June, that keeps you in your bathrobe, eating mostly toast and canned peaches, for the better part of five days. To be perfectly honest, I can’t say that I feel like eating a deviled egg right now. But I did manage to eat a bowl of cereal this morning, and that is a great improvement. I even felt well enough for a cup of coffee! Maybe, by the time you read this, I will be wearing something other than my bathrobe. It’s halfway over, but I intend to do this month right. I have a deviled egg quota to meet.

I’ve been meaning to post this recipe for a while, because every time I make it, someone asks for it. It’s one of those recipes. Most recently, I made it for Brandi’s birthday party, and that night, I think there were actually three people who asked for the recipe. THREE! That made me particularly happy, I remember, because I had gotten a slow start in cooking that evening and had felt anything but love for these eggs as I stood in the kitchen, peeling them over the sink, already late for the party and still unshowered. But of the deviled egg, that even after making me swear and pout and show up at a party with my hair looking like I’m in Van Halen, still, still, I want to make them again. (Of course, I do have a certain fondness for David Lee Roth.)

In any case, this recipe was inspired by a deviled egg served to me by Olaiya, so I can’t take credit for it. Three summers ago, she had just moved into a house with a terrific backyard, and she threw a barbecue. She made deviled eggs and salmon burgers and a giant tomato salad and corn on the cob, and our friend Ben had just moved to town, and it was a famous night. Afterward, I wrote about it here and posted the recipe for a basil aioli that we ate on almost everything. And I started working on recreating the deviled eggs: classic ones, creamy with mayonnaise and mustard and lemon, but with a very small spoonful of basil aioli on top and, balancing on top of that, a couple of crispy fried capers.




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